Hey Yetis & Besties,

If your last Starbucks cup had a cartoon dragon or a motivational message, it wasn’t a fluke — it was a corporate directive.

New CEO Brian Niccol wants to revive the OG coffeehouse vibe… with doodles. Yup, Starbucks just told baristas across 11K US and Canadian locations to start sketching. Remember those 200K Sharpies we told you they bought last year? This is what those were for.

Your Frappuccino is now a canvas. A latte Monet, if you will.

The Vatican is Trending — and So Is This Movie

The #1 movie people are watching this weekend? It’s Conclave — a 2024 drama about the centuries-old ritual of picking a pope.

Why? Because IRL, the Catholic Church is about to hold the most exclusive job interview on Earth.

• 135 cardinals will enter the Sistine Chapel in early/mid May. No phones. No Wi-Fi. No outside contact… until they’ve chosen a new pope.

• After each rounf of voting, they burn the ballots. Black smoke? No decision. White smoke? That means someone received the 2/3 majority necessary to become the new pope.

Now that the ritual is playing out in real life after the sad passing of Pope Francis (aka “The People’s Pope”, whose funeral is today), the world is binge-watching the cinematic version — it’s grieving through streaming:

• Conclave spiked to 7M minutes streamed on Amazon Prime the day the Pope died, which is equal to about 580K full movie views. Viewership hit 1.5M full views the next day, and after Amazon made it free for Prime members? Viewership of Conclave soared 3,200% this week compared to last.

• Netflix’s The Two Popes? also saw a 417% jump

• Max’s The Young Pope? probably spiking too.

• Sorry Disney+, no papal pop for you.

The Takeaway: “Shelf IP” is sleeper gold. Streaming platforms don’t need breaking news — they need great timing. When the real world starts echoing their back catalog, the numbers take care of themselves:

• The Crown surged 800% after Queen Elizabeth passed

• Contagion went viral (again) during the first month of COVID

• Pirates of the Caribbean hit #1 on Disney+ during Johnny Depp’s trial

The Biggest News of 2025… No Business News

Q1 earnings are in — and they reveal that corporate America is frozen. No big bets. No bold plans. Just one giant “we’re gonna wait this out.” We’re calling it: The Great Capitalist Pause.

• American Airlines pulled its full-year guidance. We’ll update if the outlook becomes clearer.

• Nvidia announced it will invest “up to $500B” in the US over four years. The “up to” means it could be zero.

• GM CEO Mary Barra: “I need clarity, and then I need consistency’”

The Fed’s Beige Book survey shows the feeling is everywhere. Rather than investing or hiring, companies are 100% focused on monitoring and mitigating the damage of tariffs. “Uncertainty” was mentioned a record # of times by the businesses surveyed.

It’s like a Corporate Ice Age:

• IPOs (Klarna, StubHub) are getting pulled

• Product launches are nonexistent

• PR teams have gone silent

• The only announcements are made at the White House with Trump, and they’re hedged (see Nvidia above)

The Takeaway:

Why the freeze? Because this trade war is built on tweets, not laws. Executive orders turn tariffs on and off like a light switch — no predictability, no ability to plan.

If the goal is truly to bring back American manufacturing, then we need long-term legislation. Imagine a “Made in America Act” that ramps tariffs slowly & predictably: 10% this year, 20% next, 30% the year after. That gives companies clarity and gives factories time to ramp.

Bottom line: You can’t build supply chains on vibes. If we want investment, we need consistency. If we want factories, we need laws — not tweets.

👀 Financial Trickshot

Every time you subscribe to an annual plan, cancel it immediately. You're locked in for 12 months no matter what… If you want a 2nd year, you can decide to do so when they warn you your subscription is ending soon (instead of accidentally enrolling for another year when you didn't want to be).

👯‍♀️ Tell a Bestie:

• 🥃 Liquor exports surge 40% from US — Europe’s stocking up on American whiskey before tariffs hit.

• 💵 WSJ: Everyone’s tipping less (even where tipping used to be automatic)

• 🏢 Adam Neumann just doubled Flow’s valuation to $2.5B, eyes IPO next (and VC Andreessen now owns 25% of the biz).

• 📈 Google earnings crush Wall Street expectations — It’s the 1 major outlier in Big Tech.

• 🏦 JP Morgan just promoted 227 to Managing Directors.

• 🏠 March home sales slowed to the worst pace since 2009 (high interest rates + high uncertainty, no one’s buyin’)

• 🗣️ The 4 words CEOs can’t stop saying this earnings season.

• 🌯 Chipotle’s critical “Burrito Season” approaches - it’s gonna be May.

The Best Idea Yet  🐢

2 broke cartoonists were joking around when 1 doodled a “ninja turtle” — then they added more ridiculousness (like Italian Renaissance painter names) and self published a comic book. That’s the origin of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — the newest episode of our weekly podcast The Best Idea Yet.

• The Ninja Turtles began with a creative strategy borrowed from improv… which turned a “joke” idea into a billion-dollar brand.

Listen to The Best Idea Yet for a weekly deep dive into the products you’re obsessed with.

And one more thing. If you’ve got a recent Starbucks doodle, send it our way. @tboypod

Nick’s hitting Glace ice cream on the Upper East Side post-run-in-the-park, Jack’s going to a kid-friendly concert, Beatles-themed. Celebrate the wins this weekend.

—Nick & Jack